Institutional and social innovations in irrigation mediterranean management

- The aim of the ISIIMM project is to share experiences, knowledge and
build new perspectives for sustainable water management in Mediterranean
agriculture systems. We propose to work on 12 specific well documented case
studies inside river basins in 6 different Mediterranean countries,
involving local partners, water users, citizens, development agents,
researchers, teachers and administrations in building new visions and
agreements for the sustainable management of water resources.

- With a primary objective to help local rural communities adapt to the
emerging problems resulting from pressures on the water supply, two
priorities will guide programmed activities:

- Working with local irrigation organisations and working with the
professionals of development.

Project number

n/a

Subject(s)

WATER DEMAND
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DRINKING WATER AND SANITATION : COMMON PROCESSES OF PURIFICATION AND TREATMENT
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Promoting an integrated and balanced management of water
resources by conciliating respect of the environment and economically
viable irrigated agriculture.

Specific project objective(s):

Overcoming current contradictions associated with local water
management in Mediterranean catchment areas through innovative
institutional solutions, based on an understanding of six key axes: social,
institutional, historical, agricultural, territorial and hydrological.

The social way:

Essential to an understanding of irrigation techniques developed in the
framework of social systems that are characterised by alliance or
competition.

The institutional way:

The three main forms of local management - administrative,
community-based and industrial - reflect the diversity of competing
interests for water that need to be reconciled.

The historical way:

Describes how the other mechanisms have developed through cycles of
activity, (mis-)management and crisis, reestablishment, rehabilitation and
reorganisation.

The agricultural way:

Land use patterns result from the interplay of multiple factors and are
in constant evolution to provide rural populations with their livelihood.
Water needs and uses evolve in tandem with them.

The territorial way:

A reading of the landscape allows us to understand how irrigation and
drainage systems form a network whose meaning is not only technical and
hydraulic but also social and political.

The hydrological way:

Water scenarios need to be adapted to different situations, especially
where reliable information, including the evaluation of water scarcity and
abundance (the frequency of droughts and floods), is lacking.

Results

Planned outputs:

* Building a common knowledge and comprehension of social and institutional
irrigation management and creating adapted institutional tools,

* Creating new perspectives for irrigation development policies and for
innovation at local level through guidelines and documents that synthesise
the 11 ISIIMM pilot-basin cases,